i used it last year and customers love it... they claim it prevent weeds. Let me know your thoughts. I love it, but it's expensive!

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Yea, you paid about 6 times as much as you could have, depending on state regulations where you live. But you can purchase Corn Gluten Meal at your local feed store for much less. In my area, it's gone up to $20 for a 50lb bag. The price will vary around the USA. In Ohio, it can be obtained for around $12 I hear.

CGM will prevent weeds if it is applied at the right time, needs moisture to be activated followed by a period of dryness to be effective. Also, you need to have the correct soil biology present or you won't have good results. 20 lbs per 1000 sq ft twice a year is recommend for best results, if the other conditions exists. Contains approximate 10% N.

Can you explain what biology is needed and how it interacts with the CGM in order to increase it's effectiveness.

Rates will vary depending on what your trying to control. This rate is a good starting point, however you may need higher rates in order to get acceptable results.

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I have posted this all before.

From Dr. Ingham:

"The reason corn gluten works is because it feeds the organisms that suppress the weed seeds from growing.

Gluten is a food for microbes. As with any food stuff, keep it dry, or refrigerate it in order to prevent microbial growth without the use of toxic chemicals to prevent microbial growth.

Please remember, it is the set of microorganisms you grow when you put corn gluten meal, corn meal, or any other food resource such as these materials are that gives you the results you want.

If you put any of these materials down without also making sure that you have the diversity of beneficial organisms that you need, you may well not get the results you want.

So, aerobically produced compost, or aerated compost tea need to go down at the same time as the CGM, SBM, or whatever. And of course, for biology to work, there needs to be moisture and temperature in adequate ranges.

If your soil surface is concrete, you have to do something to physically break open that surface. Moisture needs to be added so the organisms can get the water they need to build soil structure.

Corn gluten feeds some really good sets of bacteria and fungi, but for long-term weed suppression to work, you need to get a good fungal bloom to happen, not just a bacterial bloom. Which I hope explains part of why some people get good results with these food additions to their lawns and other people do not.

If the beneficial fungi have been destroyed by application of fungicides before "switching" to more green management, there's no way something like corn meal, or corn gluten, is going to give you much benefit."

In regards to Iowa State University:

"Basically, the folks at Iowa State aren't doing the microbiology assessment correctly. They use plate counts to try to give information about what is going on with the organisms decomposing the corn gluten, and thus they are missing about 99.999% of the organisms actually doing the work with the CGM.

It is t he growth of the beneficial fungi that really explains the impact of CGM. Just because the organisms aren't assessed properly does not mean they are not present and doing their work.

If you sterilize the CGM, and the soil lacks organisms, the CGM has no effect on weeds.

If you used pesticides or inorganic fertilizers during the growing
season, at ANY time, then it is a necessity to put back the organisms that were killed by the use of those materials. You will have poor pre-emergent results if the proper soil biology is missing."